Xiaomi

An ambitious new growth plan will see Xiaomi targeting Apple, aiming to overtake the Cupertino company to become China’s biggest premium smartphone brand.

It follows news that record iPhone 13 sales in China saw Apple take the top slot in China during Q4, achieving its highest ever share of the smartphone market in the country…

A market intelligence report says that Xiaomi overtook Apple in the smartwatch market during quarter two – though just barely. That left Xiaomi in the No. 1 slot, Apple as No. 2, ahead of Huawei and Fitbit, with Samsung in last place.

The report shows Xiaomi shipping 8M smartwatches during Q2, against 7.9M Apple Watches …

Apple’s current iPad Pro hardware is remarkably strong, but the Xerox machine that is Xiaomi thinks it can out-iPad the iPad. Astonishingly inexpensive price aside, Xiaomi has some good ideas on how to make an iPad…

The new Xiaomi smartwatch hasn’t yet been officially launched, but the company has shared images and details for the device, which will probably be named the Mi Watch.

Unsurprisingly, for a company born out of copying Apple devices, the Mi Watch bears an, er, strong resemblance to the Apple Watch…

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What do you call an Apple Watch Series 4 that isn’t actually an Apple Watch but has the same design and faces? Huami called theirs the Amazfit GTS, and it may be the most shameless knockoff we’ve seen yet.

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Earlier this week, Xiaomi announced its new Mi CC9 smartphone that comes with a blatant copy of Apple’s popular Memoji feature, called “Mimoji.” Now that retail listings have appeared for the new Xiaomi device and animated emoji feature, an even more ridiculous thing has happened, the Memoji clone has been promoted by Xiaomi with an actual Apple Memoji ad.

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Apple’s HomeKit seemed to be the star of the show at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, with a wide range of home-based gadgets — TVs, ceiling fans, outdoor sensors, light panels, a screen-based hub, 4K security cameras, thermostats and more — making headlines.

The HomeKit ecosystem is growing, and it looks like prices may even begin inching downward as well — but that’s not enough, and not fast enough either. As Bradley Chambers wrote in an opinion piece, Apple is leaving a lot of potential on the table by relying solely on third parties to create home-based gadgets.

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Apple clone-maker Xiaomi launched its $29 AirDots back in November, true wireless in-ear headphones whose branding and white color were an obvious play on AirPods. Details have today emerged of an even more blatant AirPods clone, copying Apple’s ‘stick’ design …

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It didn’t take long for the first Android clone of the iPhone X to appear, in the form of the Leagoo S9. The phone copied both the rounded corners and notch on the front of the device, along with the vertical camera bump on the rear.

And today a more familiar brand has done the same with Xiaomi’s Mi 8 …

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Chinese brand Xiaomi created an entire business out of copying Apple, seen in everything from an iOS-like skin for Android through websites and product launches – but perhaps the most blatant example was an iPad mini clone it named the Mi Pad.

Xiaomi even applied for a trademark on the name, prompting legal action by Apple, and the Cupertino company has now scored a partial victory …

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Apple is looking in pretty good shape this week. After posting a record quarter, IDC reported that the iPhone overtook Samsung during the holiday quarter and Strategy Analytics estimated that the Apple Watch – which also saw record (if unspecified) sales – also took 63% of the smartwatch market.

It wasn’t all good news, however. Alongside a continued slump in iPad sales, the company also reported a 12% fall in sales in China. This contrasted with 14% growth a year earlier. Apple explained one of the reasons for this during the earnings call, but it wasn’t the only one, as the WSJ noted …

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We’ve been seeing concept images for a near-bezel-free iPhone 8 for some time now, but there’s a big difference between a purely visual concept and a real-life product. Concept images can completely ignore the engineering challenges, along with the practicalities of such things as earpieces and front-facing cameras.

But Xiaomi’s latest phone, the Mi Mix, shows just what is possible in a real-life phone …

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Apple has lost its top position in smartphone shipments in China, reports Canalys, falling from the #1 slot it achieved in Q4 of 2014 to #3 in Q2 of this year.

Canalys did not reveal Apple’s market share (a number it would like its clients to pay for), stating only that Xiaomi took the top slot with a 15.9% share, with Huawei close behind at 15.7%. A separate market size estimate from Counterpoint, with similar numbers, suggests that Apple’s market share in the country may have fallen to around 12.2% … 
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Tim Cook, who is in China this week to discuss Apple’s new environmental initiatives, spoke to Chinese media regarding his plans to further expand Apple services in the country. Speaking to news outlet Xinhua, Cook discussed a variety of topics, including his hope to launch Apple Pay in China and get a smartphone in the hand of every resident.

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According to the latest numbers from IDC, Xiaomi—the rising star of the smartphone industry—has managed to pass up Samsung in China. In 2013, Xiaomi trailed Samsung’s almost 19% market share by a solid 13 percentage points (at just 5.3%), and was only the 5th largest maker of smartphones in China. Things changed in 2014. Last year, Xiaomi finished off with 12.5% of the market, almost a half-point more than Samsung at 12.1%, taking the top spot and passing not just Samsung, but Lenovo, Huawei, and Coolpad as well.

Interestingly, though, the latest numbers also show that Apple’s launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus contributed to a decent size dent in both Samsung and Xiaomi’s market footprint in Q4 of last year.
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Following on the heels of a record-breaking quarter for Apple, Strategy Analytics has crunched the numbers and crowned Apple the king of the smartphone vendors for Q4 2014—or rather, one of the kings. It seems the Cupertino company managed to tie rival Samsung for the title.

Both companies shipped 74.5 million handsets during the quarter, though Samsung still outsold Apple in terms of the annual total by a hefty margin. Those quarterly sales gave both companies an equal marketshare of 19.6%.

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